Kuniaki Koiso

Kuniaki Koiso (22 March 1880-3 November 1950) was Prime Minister of Japan from 22 July 1944 to 7 April 1945, succeeding Hideki Tojo and preceding Kantaro Suzuki.

Biography
Kuniaki Koiso was born on 22 March 1880 in Utsonomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1900 and served as a battalion adjutant and Captain during the Russo-Japanese War. Koiso rose in the ranks during peacetime, and by 1931 he was a Lieutenant-General. From 1942 to 1944, Koiso was Governor-General of Korea, succeeding Jiro Minami and preceding Nobuyuki Abe, after two terms of being Minister of Colonial Affairs; when he was governor-general, he was responsible for having the controversial conscription of Koreans into the IJA implemented during World War II. Koiso was chosen to succeed Prime Minister Hideki Tojo after the downfall of his government in 1944, and he was unable to control the events occurring as World War II was being lost to the United States, and he was unable to find a peace agreement that would appease both Japan and America. Wang Jingwei died of pneumonia in Japan, ending Japan's hopes of installing a puppet government in China. In April 1945, he resigned from being Prime Minister after the government refused to give him authority on military decisions, and Kantaro Suzuki succeeded him. Due to his roles in starting wars with the Allied Powers and China, Koiso was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes, and he died of esophageal cancer in Sugamo Prison in 1950.